selvaraja somiah’s twisted thoughts

Me, just an ordinary Penangite who spent a good part of my learning life in North Borneo and Kathmandu. I’m a geologist turned freelance writer who’s joining the blog sphere now. What I post are my general views, my ramblings, and opinions of my thoughts of what is happening in my country. You are welcome to write your comments, but seditious and racial remarks will be deleted. I am no big writer but will try my best to provide my thoughts with my simple English. I welcome suggestions and opinions on my blog so that it can be improved further for the benefit of all.

Posts Tagged ‘USA’

by Barnard Law Collier, Former New York Times Bureau Chief in Buenos Aires.

Yes. The young Donald Trump.

When I met him on occasion as a reporter, he was in his mid-20s, well dressed, handsome, semi-brilliant, the son of a well-to-do real estate developer. He displayed a natural curiosity about anything and anyone who could help him show his overbearing father how he, “Junior,” could erect buildings and amass a fortune in the family enterprise.

The young Donald hung like a rock groupie on every word that a hotshot lawyer named Roy Marcus Cohn spoke. The lessons he learned from Roy Cohn (and which I was party to at various steakhouse-ish venues around midtown) were ones that Trump has clung to all of his life since.

The core Roy Cohn commandment:

“Don’t tell me about the law, tell me about the judge.”

Immorality was defined in the Roy Cohn/Trump realms as doing anything not of direct personal benefit to oneself or one’s “satellites.” It was considered “stupid” if adversaries would not do dirty tricks because of “morality.” Roy Cohn taught that it was anti-business to allow one’s money-making activities to be hampered by any “moral” concept, including any bias against malicious lying, cheating, framing, and stealing.

Roy Cohn was supremely brilliant. He graduated Columbia University School of Law at age 20. He guided the shameless un-American activities and anti-homosexual “witch hunts” by Senator Joseph McCarthy. As attorney for several top Italian mob guys, Roy Cohn made both prosecutors and judges terribly uneasy. His opponents were met by the lowest, meanest, and dirtiest possible counters. His tactics were the talk of those New York real estate people who cared a wit about “the law” and ethics, much less morality.

Trump was then, as he is now, referred to by business people who knew him and his operations as “a noisy pipsqueak.”

Mark Cuban, a contemporary billionaire investor and television celebrity, has asked:

“If he was such a good businessman, where are the hundreds and thousands of people who will come out an say they made money with him?”

They seem not to exist, although many people who were stiffed and conned by Trump do.

By the time he was in his 40s, everyone who counted in New York and New Jersey real estate and banking were aware that the only persons to benefit from a Trump deal was Trump.

Nonetheless, an array of politicians from the major parties begged him for donations, including the Clintons. That’s how Trump got to know the fixers and the judges.

Trump’s ghosted book about the “art” of the deal was itself a scam. There was no art.

His artless point is that to be honest or scrupulous about a business deal (or any deal) is for suckers. To stick it to anyone stupid enough to be stuck is “smart,” and that includes any and all governments.

It was Roy Cohn’s advice to die, as Roy Cohn would die, owing millions of dollars in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. Currently the public does not know how well Trump may carry out that advice.

Most important, taught Roy Cohn, is to obtain a sharp lawyer, take your adversaries to court at every opportunity, accuse the opponents of doing what you yourself are guilty of, and fight ferociously on all fronts to protect your lies.

In Roy Cohn’s alternative world, the “lie” was the alternative truth, and the real truth, such as the fact that Roy Cohn was dying of a new and deadly disease called AIDS, was a “truth” he denied until his dying day, but the autopsy proved that complications from AIDS are what actually killed him. His death came only months after he was disbarred in 1986 by a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical, unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients’ funds, lying on a bar application, and pressuring a client to amend his will by guiding the hand of a nearly comatose millionaire to put his signature on a will that favored Roy Cohn’s client.

By the time Trump was in his 40s, his working motto became:

“Overpromise, underdeliver, keep the difference.”

There may be no more pithy definition of a scam.

Later in his career he ran into a hard problem he could not solve: His funding among most American banks dried up after several real estate gambles came up snake eyes. However, he found, the Russians do business almost exactly as Trump does.

But Trump is shrewd enough to know, going in, that if you try to scam the Russians, and they catch you, as they inevitably will, they will ruthlessly assassinate you or those you may love, no matter how rich and important you may think you are. (A lot of dead Russians testify to this caution.)

If you or your businesses borrow money from the Russians, there is going to be a payback.

It’s time to face it: The Russians have grabbed Donald Trump by the knurled noil and they know how to shake him.

He’s never had qualms about lying (he has often called it “natural exuberance”), quite probably to himself; a “lie detector” test may prove only that Trump is so expert at lying for a lifetime that his pulse, perspiration, respiration, and pupil size doesn’t budge a micron when he lets loose a mendacious whopper.

It’s time, in my opinion, for all Americans at least to admit and to deal with the fact that the Russians have landed themselves a whopper of a pipsqueak scam artist.

To Russians, more than a few of whom play high level chess, Trump might well represent the “passed pawn”проходная пешка. In slang, the term may also mean “an enterprise likely to bring in gold.”

The pawn is the most minor piece in chess (a pipsqueak). But, when allowed to pass behind the defenses of opponent pawns, the passed pawn has an unobstructed line to the eighth rank, where it can be promoted to a queen, a bishop, a knight, or a rook.

A passed pawn requires an opponent to defend against it, which requires the employment of major pieces which otherwise might be used as attackers.

The Russians may quite literally be “laughing at us” (as Trump has said) because Vladimir Putin has promoted his passed pawn into a golden queen, which would have made Roy Cohn laugh, too.

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The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East.

Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.

The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East.

Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.

In the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, Bannon has emerged as a central figure. He was appointed to the “principals committee” of the National Security Council in a highly unusual move and was influential in the recent travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, overruling Department of Homeland Security officials who felt the order did not apply to green card holders.

While many in Trump’s team are outspoken critics of China, in radio shows Bannon hosted for Breitbart he makes plain the two largest threats to America: China and Islam.

“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years,” he said in March 2016. “There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face – and you understand how important face is – and say it’s an ancient territorial sea.”

China says nearly the entire South China Sea falls within its territory, with half a dozen other countries maintaining partially overlapping claims. China has built a series of artificial islands on reefs and rocks in attempt to bolster its position, complete with military-length airstrips and anti-aircraft weapons.

Bannon’s sentiments and his position in Trump’s inner circle add to fears of a military confrontation with China, after secretary of state Rex Tillerson said that the US would deny China access to the seven artificial islands. Experts warned any blockade would lead to war.

Bannon is clearly wary of China’s growing clout in Asia and beyond, framing the relationship as entirely adversarial, predicting a global culture clash in the coming years.

“You have an expansionist Islam and you have an expansionist China. Right? They are motivated. They’re arrogant. They’re on the march. And they think the Judeo-Christian west is on the retreat,” Bannon said during a February 2016 radio show.

On the day Trump was inaugurated, China’s military warned that war between the two countries was a real possibility.

“A ‘war within the president’s term’ or ‘war breaking out tonight’ are not just slogans, they are becoming a practical reality,” an official wrote on the website of the People’s Liberation Army.

Aside from conflict between armies, Bannon repeatedly focused on his perception that Christianity around the world is under threat.

In one radio show, used to promote an article incorrectly claiming that a mosque had been built at the North Pole, Bannon focused heavily on China’s oppression of Christian groups.

“The one thing the Chinese fear more than America … they fear Christianity more than anything,” he said.

But China is not the only hotspot Bannon sees, and forecasts another ground war for American troops in the Middle East.

China has the world’s biggest GDP but that does not make it No.1. It is still a long long way to Tipperary. As long as two thirds of the world’s reserves are held as US$’s; as long as almost 90% of world trade is in US$; as long as even China holds most of its reserves in US$’s; as long as the world thrives and grows rich on the US trade deficit; and as long as US research, innovation and scientific leadership drives the world economy, the USA will be No.1. If GDP meant power Egypt or Saudi Arabia would have licked Israel long years ago. Soon even India will have a bigger GDP than the USA.

GDP figures are quantitative, it reflects nothing about an empowered populace or the choices they get. It is a false indicator heavily titled in favor of big corporate s and not about any human values. It is an illusion.

The Daily Mail UK has an article “China ‘overtakes U.S as the world’s largest economy”. Worth reading.

Figures show the Chinese economy is worth £11trillion, the US £10.8trillion
The IMF estimates China’s economy will be worth £16.7trillion in 2019
The US has been the global leader since it overtook Britain in 1872

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Dr. Michio Kaku is a renowned physicist and futurist. This is an interesting video where Dr Michio talks about Americas SECRET WEAPON – H-1B visa.

The US H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields such as in architecture, engineering, mathematics, science, and medicine – Its a Genius Visa!

Watch this video guys…

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The USA is upping the ante by flying its Elint planes on the reclaimed islands. China is in a hugely jingoistic mood and their social media amply reflects this. If the People Republic of China government succumbs to these pressures and opts for retaliation ala Turkey and the Russian fighter, it will get a comeuppance it could never contemplate. The US Navy is by far the most powerful military force in the world and it is raring to go.

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This is an interesting piece about Donald Trump by The Times of India. Just wanted to share with all you guys….

WASHINGTON: Most Presidential elections in America have a pivotal campaign moment — some sublime, others ridiculous — that makes or mars a candidate’s prospect. Often it is a single visual (Michael Dukakis looking comical in a helmet, riding an Abrams battle tank; “the photo-op that tanked” it was called); or Gary Hart’s escapades on a yatch aptly called “Monkey Business”; or an aging Reagan destroying a youthful Walter Mondale on live television (“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”)

No such electric moment has occurred in the 2016 election campaign already brimming with invective and name-calling. But the politically savvy comedian Jon Stewart surcharged the liberal set on Monday by called presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump a “man baby,” in a deft swipe at his limited powers of expression and lack of intellectual heft or vision.

“I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I can’t necessarily say, but are you eligible to run if you are a man-baby, or a baby-man?” Stewart told former Obama advisor David Axelrod during a live-taping of his Axe Files podcast on Monday. “He has the physical countenance of a man and a baby’s temperament and hands.”

Stewart also shredded Hillary Clinton in the hour-long interview that saw him emerge briefly from retirement as a trenchant political commentator, calling the presumptive Democratic candidate “a very bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I’m not even sure what they are.” But he was quick to clarify that her flaws were not on the same magnitude as those of Trump, who he called an “unrepentant, narcissistic asshole.”

However, it was the “man baby” moniker that went viral within hours on social media surpassing anything Trump’s rivals coined for him (bully, con artist, phony etc) or what Trump has tied to his rivals (Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary. Goofy Elizabeth). Considering he is openly vain about his looks and his manhood, the #manbaby moniker could well become the signature taunt of his critics in an election that is already being fought through #hashtags.

Many pundits concur that Trump has lived up to the charge of being shallow and immature with his off-the-cuff outbursts (expressed without much clarity or consistency) and lack of any policy depth. On Monday, Trump said people like the newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan could be an exception to his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, because, he rambled infelicitously, he was doing a “good job.”

“Because I think if he does a great job, it will really — you lead by example, always lead by example,” Trump rambled incoherently with what critics say is the vocabulary of a high-schooler. “If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing.”

Khan, in any event, snubbed Trump, saying it wasn’t about him alone and he did not want an exemption from “ignorant” Trump’s Muslim ban.